Super heavy sigh 1.5 stars is more of what I felt for this (actually as time passes I dislike this more and more).There might be some spoiler-ish information through here, so don't read the tags if you don't want to know, but I will do my best to not spoil it outside of the tags.
I'm in the minority when it comes to the lack of adoration towards this book, and I just don't get it. There were so many things that annoyed me that I couldn't really focus on the story.
Cinder is a cyborg version of Cinderella. Awesome idea, and I have to give the author credit for putting a new spin on an old story, but I just couldn't get invested in Cinder no matter how much I tried to make myself. She was almost tstl for me.
So she gets told that the disease can be transmitted on clothes and that it takes an hour or more for it to die. Then tell me why she leaves Peony and goes right to the prince?! She does this shit twice! She gives that boy the antidote without any thought of the repercussions, and I'm not saying he shouldn't have lived, but come on! This chick never thinks!!!!! Like she finds that old car and is determined to fix it but it has no headlights, and the only reason I even mention that is when she points out how she was thankful for the lights from the houses on the way to the palace. Then she crashes...because she can't see. How the hell are you going to get to wherever you are going without being able to see at night? Only travel during the day? Ok fine, but I don't see her doing that since she points out that she will be a fugitive (at least that is what I gathered from her thoughts). Also, how are the roads?!?! Really. If that car is SO old, and the main mode of travel is hovercrafts, than how does she expect to get to Europe and be able to find gas? How far away is Europe from the Commonwealth anyway? I took it to mean that boundaries were changed after WW4 so for all I know the "new"(?) Europe isn't that far. Would it have been too much to ask for some explanations in this book? What the hell does the T.E. stand for?! What in the name of God happened to make the Lunars hate the Earthens? By the way, I liked that name, lol. We get told that they had been people but were no longer, and yet they have the exact looks of humans. The only thing they seem to do is make their appearance better with their energy manipulations. So how is it that they aren't humans but still look, act, and think the way humans do? I just didn't get that. I thought maybe they would have green skin or something, haha. Oh man, there's more but I'm losing my train of thought. How about her wearing Peony's dress, and not even needing to take a moment to be sad about it? She was also GLAD to see the wrinkles, and grease, on the dress and gloves! Then she was totally fine with showing up looking like a damned drowned rat to the EMPERORS effin ball! I would have understood being wet...to a point...but she was knowingly wearing stained clothes to the ball, and just didn't care.
I also got incredibly annoyed with how many times I noticed inconsistencies. For example, Cinder refers to her arms typically in that only one can feel, and then a little bit later she makes a remark about BOTH feeling. She has a computer brain, but her eyes are hers? How did the lights from her scans show up in them? How was she able to remain with her human emotions with a computer for a brain? How did she have dreams anyway? Especially since we all knew that they were dreams of her being burned courtesy of how often she mentioned it (was it supposed to be that obvious, lol. I hope so).
The part when the Emprorer died Kai says he ran all the way there and had to stop to catch his breath, but I have no idea how far he ran. I even left myself a note that said--well how fucking far did he go?!--I get very frustrated with loose books. I want to KNOW damnit, and even more so when the floor number of his room is provided.
Kai was very immature for someone who would have been groomed his entire life for his role. I'm fine with his going to the market in secret, and even flirting with Cinder, but when he can't even show up to a meeting with world leaders I get annoyed. I kept thinking of Prince William funny enough, and how he would never do that, haha. True story. And WHY was he telling Cinder about war plans and such?! Really.
I get that Iko was supposed to be the funny sidekick, and she kind of was for me, but even she fell flat. I was picturing her as a blue robot, but at one point it says she's white. Minor detail I know, but that whole aspect annoyed me. Wow, not much seems like it didn't annoy me eh? haha!
The last thing I will harp on is the whole cyborgs are less than second class citizens. They are told how they aren't human. They are walking investments! More of whom were mainly human from what I could tell. Even Cinder with her electronic brain was the picture of what a human is. She felt all the emotions that humans feel she just couldn't cry or blush. I want to know why they were treated like that. Oh my word, I just checked the notes I made on my Kindle, and I have some 19 notes, and 11 pages of highlights. Almost all of them are the times I caught some inconsistency. Like the guy telling Kai that the Lunars had that army, and following it up with saying they would attack within six months? How did he pick that time frame when they just saw the army? Bah. It was all just too loose.
And well I guess that's about it for me, haha!! I did not realize I would spend the whole review just ranting, but that's how I felt reading this. Just...wait for it...annoyed. Haha.
